Candidates for 2000:
I had intended to write this opinion long ago. Unfortunately, it's a little late now considering that all but two (in my opinion, the most lackluster of both major parties) are now out of the race before many US citizens even had a chance to go to the polls.
No candidate is ever perfect, but I wanted an opportunity to discuss the good points of John McCain, Steve Forbes, and Bill Bradley's candidacies before they were all forced out of the race by a minority of the states.
Well, now we're left with George W. Bush, a man whose qualifications are few and whose experience is sketchy, a man whose own family asked him not to run yet who is so obsessed with the limelight that he must seek it at any cost just as insects do the bright, hot light of a halogen bulb before it burns them up in a smoky, stinking inferno.
What bothers me most about Bush, though, is his hypocrisy. There is evidence which suggests that he was an avid drug user at one time, using substances as potent as cocaine. Yet he was happy to sign legislation as governor of Texas which has consigned young people with promise who have done no worse than he to years of incarceration during a period of their lives when they need to be preparing themselves for their life's careers.
On the subject of race relations, Malcolm X once stated the following: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I think it's clear that the same is true of the drug war. Politicians like Bush want to come across to the public as tough on crime, so they build more and more prisons and throw more and more people into jail until, as a recent BBC article documented, the United States now houses one quarter of all the prisoners in the world or one percent of its entire population! The problem with this approach (beyond the sheer magnitude of the financial costs relating to maintaining these facilities and the revenue lost from so many people not working and not paying taxes) is that all but the most violent of these offenders will eventually be released back into mainstream society with no means of coping with their lives on the outside beyond the survival skills they learned from vicious criminals on the inside.
I would like to elect as president someone who has shown presidential promise in their political career by creating and implementing innovative solutions to crime, environmental and inner-city degradation, and over-development, the most serious problems facing us today. To my mind, George W. Bush has shown no such innovation.
Al Gore, on the other hand, has demonstrated his thoughtfulness and his appreciation for innovative solutions to environmental problems in the authoring of his 1992 work Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. I highly recommend this book which discusses real-life solutions to environmental challenges that have been implemented around the world. If you're worried about the environment, don't just mope around thinking there's no hope. Read Gore's book or Paul Hawken's 1994 work entitled The Ecology of Commerce and you'll quickly discover that many intelligent people all around the world are putting their heads together to combat the problems we are facing due to the excesses of unchecked capitalism and out-of-control population growth.
I believe the future is bright, but we've got to act now to protect irreplaceables like wilderness and the indigenous of South America, Africa, Indonesia, and Asia before they are gone forever along with the vast stores of knowledge about survival which they possess. (If you're interested in some other interesting information about ecology and the environment, check out my ecology page which contains articles on the philosophy of E.F. Schumacher, the Amish of Pennslyvania and Ohio, and several links to related pages).
One thing that worries me about Gore, though, is his connection to a powerful Los Angeles-based oil company called Occidental who is collaborating with the US and Colombian governments to dispossess the indigenous U'wa people of their forested lands in Colombia so they can search for oil deposits there. Gore's book makes it clear that he understands the seriousness of environmental issues. Yet he, a major stockholder in this company over a period of many years, refuses to speak out against what this company is attempting to do. This strikes me as extremely hypocritical. So far, Gore has refused to discuss this issue publicly which could cost him my vote and that of many others in the end.
As I wrote to Gore in a letter recently, I'm not particularly fond of the notion that a man like George W. Bush may become our next president. But if the alternative is an even bigger hypocrite, then I'll probably choose a third-party candidate. In fact, it seems to me that the Reform Party or another third party (preferably the Natural Law Party) would have excellent odds this year considering the poor choices we've come up with in the two major parties.
NOTE: The above link takes you to the international Natural Law Party website. Click here to see the US-specific site where you can read about that party's presidential candidates.
As always, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion, so please feel free to send me an e-mail. Thanks,
David Harris, March 16, 2000
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